Arduino Tool: For Interactive Artwork Installations.

Murtaza Hussain Shaikh

Department of Computer and Information Science (IDI),
Norwegian University of Science & Technology (NTNU), Trondheim 7448 - Norway.

ABSTRACT
The emergence of the digital media and computational
tools has widened the doors for creativity. The cutting
edge in the digital arts and role of new technologies can
be explored for the possible creativity. This gives an
opportunity to involve arts with technologies to make
creative works. The interactive artworks are often
installed in the places where multiple people can interact
with the installation, which allows the art to achieve its
purpose by allowing the people to observe and involve
with the installation. The level of engagement of the
audience depends on the various factors such as aesthetic
satisfaction, how the audience constructs meaning,
pleasure and enjoyment. The method to evaluate these
experiences is challenging as it depends on integration
between the artificial life and real life by means of
human computer interaction.
This research investigates How Adriano fits for
creative and interactive artwork installations? using
an artwork installation in the campus of NTNU
(Norwegian University of Science & Technology). The
main focus of this investigation has been to get an
overview on the intersection between information
technology and Arts. This gives an opportunity to
understand various attributes like creativity, cooperation
and openness of processes influencing the creative
Artworks. The artwork is combination of Adriano and
other auxiliary components such as sensors, LEDs and
speakers. The data for analysis is mainly collected
through the questionnaire to people interacting with the
installation. This data collected proved that the choice of
hardware and software plays a vital role in shaping the
creative artworks; the investigation has also showed that
there are other factors as well which will influence the
creativity such as budget, selection of tools and design
for the artwork.
Keywords Artwork installations; Artist; Adriano;
Creativity; Auxiliary components; Questionnaires;
Interactivity; Collaboration; Intersection; Sensors.

1. INTRODUCTION
As the computer science field has grown to be
ubiquitous part of humans life, the need for making
software and hardware support to fit to the needs of the
users is constantly increasing. The issue closely
connected with this phenomenon is creativity. Nearly
every activity is involved with the creativity. Creativity
occurs when somebody produces work which is useful,
generative and influential [1]. While creativity is
involved with every work but it is difficult to access the

creativity as creativity differs from person to person. The

creative work from one person may seem to be general
work from others point of view. The historical and
Psychological attributes are also important to define the
creativity [2]. The emergence of the digital media and a
computational tool has opened the doors for creativity
[3]. The cutting edge in the digital arts and role of new
technologies can be explored for the possible creativity
[3]. This gives an opportunity to involve arts with
technologies to make creative works. There are other
factors which influence the creative work, one such
factor is the interactivity. The interactivity defines that
artist; artwork and user have a role to play in order to
give shape to the output of an interactive artwork [4].
The information technology have been influencing in
shaping the creative artworks from 1960s. There is an
intersection of Arts and Software interests which attracts
the people from different backgrounds to work together
for creative Artworks [5]. The tools available these days
are very well suited to fulfill the needs of people from
different background. There are many open source
software and hardware tools available explicitly for
creative works, one such tool is Arduino. An Arduino is
an open source electronics prototyping platform
configured with electronic components such as micro
controllers, LEDs, sensors etc. and it can be used for
creating interactive objects and environments [6].

2. PROBLEM DESCRIPTION
The main focus is to get an overview on the intersection
between information technology and Arts. This gives an
opportunity to understand various attributes like
creativity, cooperation and openness of processes
influencing the creative Artworks [7]. As a result of this
work will mainly focus on enhancing state-of- art
technology and research on the collaboration between
software and arts with its implementation addressing the
environment issues like water pollution, this will lay a
good foundation for the future work on Role of creativity
in shaping the Artworks. With the above stated goals, we
propose the following research problem statement for
this project;
To study the Arduino for creative and interactive
Artwork installations.
More concretely, the research is carried out to
understand the collaboration between art and software
using Arduino based artwork with water pollution as
case study of research. The research is carried out with
an installation which has a message about side effects of

978-1-4244-6448-7/11/$26.00 2011 IEEE

the water pollution. The primary goal of this paper is to

understand the interaction between Artwork, Artist,
Visitor and software / hardware phenomenon of ArTe
conceptual framework [8]. As the artwork is concerned
with the environment issue of water pollution, there is
possibility to extending the research further to;
Understand the collaboration between the software
and arts in solving environmental issues.
Educating the people about the environmental
concerns and at the same time encouraging them to be
creative.

2.1 Research Methodology

The purpose of the research was to get a deeper
understanding of the various elements involved in the
creative and interactive artworks; the research method
used was explorative, as the explorative study is helpful
for the researcher to understand the research problem
[52]. This method gives an opportunity to get better
understanding of one has not aware on and also gives an
opportunity to researchers to base their work on previous
existing works [9]. The research was conducted basically
by using two types of research methods: the first
research method was to explore the literature to get an
understanding of the current situation of the interactive
artworks and usefulness of the tools such as Arduino in
creating interactive artworks. The literature study being
explorative, rather than systematic provides a platform to
discover unknown and deeper aspects of the artwork
installations. Secondly, the research involved the
installation of the artwork and thereby questionnaire was
performed to get find the interactivity of the Artwork.

2.2 Research Scope

The scope of this research has been narrowed by the
problem definition to understand the usefulness of the
Arduino in making the creative artworks and factors
influencing the produced artwork. The concept behind
the creativity is wide; it depends on the field and nature
of the project chosen. In this research we are addressing
the creativity involved with the artwork being developed.
Also there is interesting aspect with the installation; the
people interacting with the installation can also use their
creativity to use different artifacts like paper, pen etc to
check the output from the Artwork. The research is
carried out by using an Art installation in a public place,
which comprises of Arduino and multimedia
technologies. The multimedia technologies have also
changed the process involved with art and the usage of
music, video and displays in making an appeal to the
user [10]. However, this research does not cover the role
of multimedia technologies in shaping the interactive
installations. The results from this research can be used
for analyzing some of the main issues discussed in

Software Arts such as educational and social issues of art

and software [10]. The data collected from the project
will enable us to fully understand the hardware and
software role in shaping the creative artworks and
understand the various aspects influencing the interactive
Artwork installations. Furthermore, the research can be
conducted in the future by using the data collected in this
project. The data collected in this research can be useful
for analyzing the involvement of Artists in the software
development and awareness of people towards
environment pollution as the project involves artwork
installation related to the water pollution and
participants intuition while working with installation.

3. LITERATURE REVIEW ON ARTS

To perform research through the artwork installations, it
is essential to understand the various elements involved
in the artwork installations. As we see today there has
been growth of arts from earlier times to current time.
The role of technology is more prevalent these days than
the earlier times. The technology has removed the
complications involved with the artworks and making it
feasible to deploy artworks for the people in different
fields.

3.1 Historical Considerations

The term ART is often confusing; the meaning of the
word has been changing from time to time. The work
which is considered as an artwork may not have
considered as a piece of artwork when it was first
designed or the person who have made the work may not
have considered it as an Artwork. The notion of art
and artist are relatively modern terms [11]. The Art
does not have any concrete definition, according to the
Britannica online, Art is "the use of skill and imagination
in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or
experiences that can be shared with others" [11].
Therefore, the art can be considered as the work which
produces some aesthetic sense [12]. At Renaissance
phase, the Art emerged as collective term comprising
Painting, Sculpture and Architecture [11]. This has
further expanded to the other areas such as Music and
Poetry, which became part of the fine arts in the 18th
century. So, these five fields formed as a fundamental
unit of fine arts separating them from the decorative
arts and crafts, such as pottery, weaving, and
furniture making [11]. This arise few questions like how
art can be distinguished from crafts. What is the
difference between artist and craftsmen? In the ancient
days, the term we consider, Art today was an activity
governed by the rules [13]. The activities such as
Painting, Sculpture and Weaving were considered as
human activities rather than crafts [13]. In the latter part
of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century,
the notion of truth to ones material emerged. It is called

as Art for Arts Sake [14]. In the early 20th century,

the notions about the art and Artists were penalized and
the Art was redefined as Anything which is produced by
an artist is an Art [11]. This has made the Art as a
broad field, which includes different elements involved
in it such as Artists, Artworks, Technologies and people
involved with the artworks, the perception of the
participants or observers and so on. This has made the
communication as the key aspect to distinguish between
a work and Artwork. The work which has an appeal to
the observers or which communicates a message to the
observers interacting with it can be called as an Artwork
[15].

3.2 Current Paradigms of Arts

The form of art usually differs from the type of Artwork
such as painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture,
electronic media such as computer and digital graphics,
ceramics, Visual Design, Graphic Design, photography
and so on [16].

3.2.1 Painting
Painting is a graphic art which is made by the applying
paints to a surface using the artistic composition [17].
The painting is in existent from the ages. Starting from
the cave paintings of Lascaux to some great masterpieces
of Leonardo Da Vinci, the arts have played a historical
and aesthetic role in all the ages [18]. In figure3.2.1 one
of the famous paintings named Monalisa in the
renaissance phase is illustrated. The paintings developed
into many different types such as historical, allegorical,
religious, portrait and so on over the years [18].

Figure 3.2.1 : Monalisa, masterpiece from the painter da vinci in the

renaissance period [19]

3.2.2 Drawing
Drawing is an Art or technique of producing images on a
surface, usually paper, by means of marks in graphite,
ink, chalk, charcoal, or crayon [20]. The drawing has
always been part of the art, it is considered as a language
for expressing the nature and creativity [21].

Figure 3.2.1: Madonna & Child, c.1580, Agostino Carracci work [22]

3.2.3 Photography
The photography is a process of producing visual images
of the objects on photosensitive surfaces, which can
captures the image [23]. The process of photography is
relatively new to world of art [24]. The arts in
renaissance period grown to large extend based on the
criteria to capture the nature, realism and the emergence
of the photographic devices, the extent to capture the
images has been increased by leaps and bounds. The
details which cannot be portrayed by an artist can be
possibly captured with a photograph.

3.2.4 Sculpture
The art or practice of making figures and designs using
tools on stones, casting on metals or modeling using clay
[25]. The sculpture has been the primary source of
expression from thousands of years. The sculpture is
often used to represent the societal concerns, such as
religion, politics, and morality [26].

3.2.5 Digital Art

Digital art is a form of contemporary art, making
distinctive works using the computer technology [29].
This art emerged in the 1970s but came into the limelight
after growth in the technology like computers,
softwares, video devices, sound mixers and digital
cameras. The process of digital art has been associated
with various names computer art and multimedia art but
the digital art is placed itself under the broad category of
Media Arts [30]. There are different forms of digital arts
such as Algorithmic art, Art game, Art software,
Computer art, Computer art scene, Computer generated
music, Computer graphics, Computer music, Cyber arts,
Demo scene, Digital illustration, Digital imaging, Digital
morphogenesis, Digital painting, Digital photography,
Digital poetry, Dynamic Painting, Electronic art,
Electronic music, Evolutionary art, Movie special
effects, Fractal art, Generative art, Immersion (virtual
reality) , Interactive film, Machinima, Motion graphics,
Multimedia, Music visualization, New Media Art, New
Media Photo manipulation, Pixel art, Software art,
Systems art, Traditional art, Video art, Video game art,
Video game design, Video poetry and Virtual arts [30].

4. ARTIST CREATIVITY ISSUES

Having seen the different forms of arts which form the
basis for creating Artworks today, it is time to focus on
the creativity of the Artist itself. We will not focus on the
creativity among the artists to do the artwork instead we
will focus on the hindrances which artists might
encounter while creating their artworks. There is
however no secret that some of the works related to the
painting, photography etc has been under criticism
during the past centuries. It is very important to

understand that creativity is often involved with the

Artworks.

4.1 Artworks and Creativity

The artworks produced by an artist can have different
purposes; one of them can be interactivity i.e. to engage
the audience. The interactive artworks are often installed
in the places where multiple people can interact with the
installation, which allows the art to achieve its purpose
by allowing the people to observe and involve with the
installation [35]. The level of engagement of the
audience depends on the various factors such as aesthetic
satisfaction, how the audience constructs meaning,
pleasure and enjoyment [36]. The method to evaluate
these experiences is challenging as it depends on
integration between the artificial life and real life by
means of human computer interaction [37]. The artworks
can be creative, which involves the participants to work
with the installation to produce some new functionality
which can be further developed or which creator of the
artwork has not thought of. This creates the necessity to
understand the creativity thought process development
and the life cycle of the creativity process in order to
design the artwork having creative edge. The following
sections present the development cycle of creativity, and
then we will present the constraints of creativity and
various issues relevant with the creative artwork
installations.

4.2 Creativity Development Cycle

Creativity is often embedded in every activity we
perform, Creativity can be characterized as a process
towards achieving an outcome recognized as innovative
[33].

4.2.1 Preparation
Creative thinking begins with careful observation of the
world coupled with thoughtful analysis of how things
work and fail [38]. The preparation phase starts with the
observation i.e. the inspiration and thought to produce a
creative art work, it happens by observing our
experience and creativity is triggered [39].

4.2.2 Imagination
This is the phase of inspiration and creative action [39].
The major processes involved in this phase are Time in,
Generation and Harvesting. The Time in process
means the time of silent reflection [38], which includes
the process where we start to train our mind for the new
creative work, for instance, we make our mind like a
blank page which can be explored for any new works
[39]. The Generation process is the stage where the
creativity is tried to infuse into the process of work. This
stage allows the user (i.e. person producing the creative
work) to brainstorms or uses mind maps to get overall
view of the creative work to be established [39]. The
Harvesting is a process where the creative thoughts are
made available for the use. In other words ready to be
harvested into proper plans for actual implementation
[39].

4.2.3 Development
This is the process where the ideas formulated from the
previous phase are put into actual development. There
are two major processes involved in this phase namely
Enhancement and Evaluation [39]. The Enhancement
means the process of editing, which allows the user to
modify the thoughts to fit into the actual development
[39]. The Evaluation is the process where the creator
reasons himself whether he/ she is achieving what is
desired [39].

4.2.4 Action

Figure 4.2: Directed Creativity Cycle [38]

The creativity and innovation can be represented in the

form of different stages of development as illustrated in
the figure 6. The stages involved in the creativity
development as illustrated as Directed Creativity Cycle
[38] is a synthesis model of creative thinking. The four
phases involved in this creative thinking cycle are
Preparation, Imagination, Development, and Action. The
following is the brief description of these phases;

This is the last phase of the cycle which focuses on the

actual implementation of the creative thoughts and
sharing the work produced with others [39]. The major
process involved in this phase is the Implementation
which means the task of giving lie to the idea [39]. This
last phase makes the creator to get new thoughts from
the evaluation done by the other persons or the
interaction mechanism involved between the people and
work produced. This phase leads seamlessly to the
beginning of another creativity cycle [39]. We have seen
the various processes involved in the development of the
creative art works. However, there are other aspects
which will affect influence the creative work produced
by an Artist (i.e. creator of the artwork). In the next
section we will present these aspects which influence the
artworks produced by an artist.

4.3 Creativity Constraints

The creativity is often bound by the constraints, the true
innovation happens when the constraints and challenges
are surpassed [34]. The following are the various
constraints in producing creative works. The creativity is
often bound by the constraints, the true innovation
happens when the constraints and challenges are
surpassed [34]. The following are the various constraints
in producing creative works.
CHANGING PERSPECTIVES: The perspectives of the
people varies as the creative work from one person may
not be creative to other person, it can be general work
from his/her perspective. The main challenge is to
overcome this barrier and produce the work with
outstanding creativity. The outstanding creative work is
any work which has stood test of time and recognized by
people beyond the specialist community [40].
EXPERTISE IN TOOL: The other challenge faced by
the artists is the need to become expert with the tool in
order to produce creative work. The tools such as image
editing, modeling tools requires the user to have good
understanding of the various functionalities of the tools
and Programming knowledge in order to increase the
horizons of their creativity.
SELECTION
OF
TOOLS
(HARDWARE/
SOFTWARE): The choice of the tool depends mainly on
the creativity of the artist. The creativity often depends
on the selection of the tools for making the creative
artwork. However, there can be some factors which will
prevent the artist using the tools such as not meeting the
full requirements of the project or lack of tool expertise.

4.4 Meeting User Expectations

The creativity is also dependent upon the expectations of
the users i.e. Artists. The Artists often look for the
processes or factors which make the project (or Artwork)
feasible. The following are some of the expectations
which will make the Artist to produce creative work.
LOW COST: The cost plays a major role in designing
and planning the artwork. The Artist imagination and
creativity are often hampered by the budget allocated for
producing the artwork. In order to make the artist feel
comfortable with the artwork project is to make the
project composed of the things which are viable and easy
to use. One such method is to use the open source, which
will drastically reduce the cost for the artwork project
and also provides the flexibility for the user to change or
modify according to the needs of the artist as per GNU
GPL license provided by the open source.
COLLABORATION AMONG MULTIPLE FIELDS:
The growth in the technologies has made possible to
produce artworks involving knowledge from different
fields. For instance, the interactive installations
developed by the artists such as Samir M.kadmi artworkSonic Onyx [41], yvind Brandsegg artwork Flyndre
[42] and so on. These installations are built using

knowledge from many fields such as mechanical,

electronic, programming etc. This illustrates that the
scope of the artworks are pervasive and it is expanding
to various fields. In order to make these installations
possible the collaboration between different people from
different fields is important. It is fruitful to open research
centers such as COSTART, a research center based on
multi-disciplinary foundations such as Art, Design,
Science and Engineering to improve the human
computer interaction and facilitate artwork installations
using collaboration between people from different fields
[3].

5. ARDUNIO TOOL
Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping
platform having both hardware and software components
[6]. The main intention for designing the Arduino
platform is to suit the needs of the artists, designers,
hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive
objects or environments [6]. The Arduino board consists
of a micro controller which enables to receive inputs
from the sensors and thereby can be used to drive
motors, LEDs, sensors and other components [45].
Microcontrollers are small computational devices
embedded on integrated circuit containing processor,
memory and other peripheral I/O pins [46]. The figure
below illustrates one of the Arduino Diecimila, one of
the microcontroller board based on the ATmega168 [6].
The microcontrollers have existed from decades,
However Arduino microcontroller is explicitly designed
for artists and designers [45]. The main advantage for the
artists and the designers is to execute without knowing
the internal functioning of either hardware or software of
the Arduino [45]. The Arduino was aimed to be used by
non technical users. The Arduino was made apart from
other microcontrollers by providing four major features
they are inexpensive, providing an IDE for code
development, programming via USB and community
support for Arduino [6].

5.1 Purpose of Artwork Installation

In recent years, artists are exploring possibilities to
extend arts with the computation [31]. The role of
information technology is increasing in creating the
artworks. The creativity also plays an important role in
choosing the right technologies for the artwork.

Figure 5.1: ArTe conceptual framework

There are various aspects associated with the interactive

artworks and relations among those elements are
important to analyze the interactivity of the artwork. The
aspects are Artists, Artwork, Technologies and
participants. The relation between these factors can be
studied using the ArTe conceptual framework as
illustrated in the figure 5.1 [32]. The focus on sharing,
cooperation and openness is central in the artwork
project, particularly with regards to technology.

5.2 System Description

The following are the design aspects of the created
artwork and its working procedure.
SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE: The system architecture
is illustrated in the figure below, the installation includes
a blue strip of paper depicting the river and also Arduino
micro controller is connected to installation along with
audio speakers, LEDs and Flash memory. The LEDs are
placed underneath the river (i.e. blue strip of paper)
connected in such a way that it will change the color
depending upon the signals or input received from the
participant (or Artist) working with the project. The
participant is provided with a scenario of having
recycling containers and some toxic containers (Note: the
containers refer to the vessels holding the garbage) near the
water body. The participants are provided with some
artifacts readily available at installation area like paper,
polythene covers, oil or any liquid. When the participant
puts those objects in the containers , the IR sensors
which are present in the containers will detect the objects
being placed and then the LEDs will change their color
and also the color of water (i.e. in our case it is blue
strip) flowing in the artwork (as LEDs are placed
underneath the water). This project also provides scope
for the participant to have creativity edge, by allowing
participant to use other objects to place inside the
container. The participant can also sense the music being
played upon adding pollutant to the water. The audio
output will differ from pleasant music like birds singing
or any melody depicting happy moments to sad songs
depending upon the degree of pollution added to the
water. This feature will help the participant and nearby
visitors to hear and imagine with respect to the side
effects of pollution.

Figure 5.2 b: The Installations

HARDWARE: The artwork is mainly built on the

Arduino microcontroller platform and thereby can be
divided into majorly three functionalities firstly, the
LEDs and second one is the sensors and third is the
Audio Speakers. The Sensors are used to track the
objects being thrown into the containers and upon
detecting the changes in the infra red sensor values the
color of light in LEDs changes. Also the user will be
able to hear the audio from one of the speakers in
response to the sensor values; the sensors are placed in
the containers to collect the garbage, where one belongs
to the environmental friendly container which will not
pollute the water and other being the toxic container,
which may pollute the water. The user throws any object
into the environment friendly container a good melody
with birds singing is played otherwise the audio changes
to thunders and storms, to illustrate that something is
wrong and is not good for the environment. The
interactive part of the artwork is when user puts anything
in the container there the artwork will 1) The sensor
detects the user input and container and 2) changes the
color of the LEDs and 3) The audio is played in response
to the user and container where the objects are put into.

Table 5.2: Specification for tools

5.3 Artwork assessment using ArTe Framework

Figure 5.2 a: The Architecture

The creativity support tool (such as Arduino) can be

truly tested by considering the impact level of tool on the
creative thought process. The assessment has to be based
upon various criteria`s such as efficiency of the tool,
cognitive support and other subjective assessments [56],

which are governed by the various phenomenon such as

Artist, Artwork, Visitor and Software, The ArTe
conceptual model is based upon these phenomenon.
Therefore the ArTe conceptual model can be applied to
Arduino, a creative support tool to understand the
collaboration between the various phenomena associated
with tools for achieving the creative works. The
following table illustrates the relationships that are
associated with Artwork as per the ArTe framework.

questions, as known as Likert Scale [52] and some

were scaling based questions such as very interesting to
none interesting, in order to truly find the purpose
fulfilled by various elements in shaping the creative
artwork.
Limitations and Scope of Artwork: This part of the
questionnaire was to find the limitations of the artwork
and thereby find out the improvements and further
development in order to make it suitable for wide
audiences. The majority of the questions were quantity
questions such as are there additional features that you
would want incorporated into this Artwork? And some
of the questions were also based on the closed type [52],
such as what are the features required to make it more
creative?

6.1 Participants

Table 5.3: Relationships with ArTe framework.

6. QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN
The questionnaire is effective way to collect the data
from many people for research [52]. This method does
not often give a chance to go back and ask the questions
[52], so we have designed the questions properly to
increase the response rate and probability to get more
data for the analysis. The questionnaires can be
classified mainly into four parts namely, Factual data
(basic information about the participants), Interactivity of the
Artwork, Hardware and Software fulfilling the
requirements of the project, Limitations and scope for
improvement.
Factual Data: These questions were mainly to know the
background information of the person such as education
level, department of study, age group and gender. This
information is essential in order to be aware of the
sample of people contributed to the data and their
background related to the Arts or the engineering.
Interactivity and Creativity of Artwork: These questions
were designed to check whether the users were able to
interact with the Artwork or not. Also there were few
questions related to the creativity such as whether they
were able to use the nearby objects with the artwork in
order to check the output. The questions were basically
closed, where the users are given an option to select the
choices from pre defined choices [52]. In the latter
question of this part, user is given a choice to say YES /
NO to get the feedback on the creativeness of the
artwork.
Elements of Artwork: This part of questionnaire is
crucial part of the artwork, as we wanted to find out the
role of the hardware/ Software and other elements such
as wooden frame or any part involved in the artwork.
The questions were mainly degree of agreement

The participants required for collecting the sampling or

questionnaires with the students in the university seemed
as the most probable method, we have chosen the
students at researchers workplace. This process may
not be enough to test the artwork, but it was selected for
various reasons. Primarily it fits our analysis where
students being from the computer science department,
they are somewhat aware of the technologies and tools.
Also due to the time constraint and majority of the
students from other fields are taking their exams, so we
have chosen to perform the research using the data
collected from these chosen set of people.

Figure 6.1: Age group and Gender

In total 7 from the participated 9 students filled the

questionnaires, where 5 persons filled completely and 2
persons filled partially and thus yielding a response rate
of nearly 80%. Out of the incomplete 2 responses, one
was rejected as they have not answered the essential part

of the research. This gave the final sample of 6 people,

where 84% were the male and 16 percent were female.
84% of the students (i.e. Participants) were in the age
group of 20-25 and only 16 percentages were in the age
group of 25-30.

Not surprisingly, the responses from the people were

positive in terms of the interactivity as can be seen in the
figure 6.2 , 34% of the respondents felt that the
interactive and 50% as partially interactive, where as
16% as non interactive.

Figure 6.2.1 : Responses to Interactivity of the Artwork?

This is an expected result as the sensors were placed

inside the container and people were trying to use nearby
objects to place in the containers. The responses as can
be seen in figure 6.2.1 prove this fact; nearly 66% of the
respondents were able to use the nearby objects to put
into the container.

Figure 6.1.1: Study Background and level of study of Participants

The background of the students were highly educated

and majority of the students had already completed the
degree either bachelor or masters. All the students were
associated with computer science department taking
various programs of study at the university.

6.2 Results
As can be seen in the figure 6.2 the responses from the
participants illustrate that the majority of the people are
aware of the theme f the project as related to the
recycling process and the theme as the water pollution.
The percentages for the people thinking as recycling
process were 50 where as 34 felt it as water pollution,
while 16 percent of them felt that it has both the shades
of recycling process and the water pollution.

Figure 6.2 : Responses to What is the Purpose of the Project

Figure 6.2.2 : Responses to Were you able to use the nearby objects
to place in the container, Is this creative?

Elements of Artwork: The purpose of this part of the

questionnaire is to access the various parts related to the
artwork. As can be seen in the figure 6.2.3 the opinions
are quite in agreement to what we have discussed in the
preliminary studies. The reason for these positive
responses can be because of the impression made to the
user as correct answer [55]. In the results, we can see
the pattern in the responses and the understanding of the
users. In the responses for the layout and design of the
artwork, the responses were mostly ambiguous as nearly
33.3 percent for somewhat important, least important
and 33.3 LED`s and unsure about the layout of the
artwork. In case of Sensors, people shown some positive
signs as majority of the respondents 34% felt that it was
either somewhat important or important and 16% felt
that it was most important. However, 16 percent have
responded for least important. In the case of speaker, the

respondents felt that it is important as 34 percent for

important and 50% for somewhat important, where as 16
percent for least important. For the LED`s, nearly half of
the people felt that important.

their needs and remaining others were spread from very

likely to unlikely.

Figure 6.2.5: Responses to Are you interested in developing these

kinds of artworks for your needs?
Figure 6.2.3 : Responses to How important are the following features
of the Artwork?

In order to completely understand the drawbacks of the

created artwork and the importance of the artwork, the
question was asked on the interesting aspects of the
artwork, thereby and the responses were for the LED`s,
34% felt that it is either uninteresting or neutral and 16
percent felt that it is interesting and also not sure of. In
the case of the audio output from the artwork, 16% for
the interesting and 34% of the response for both
interesting and neutral. For the Containers placed in the
artwork, the majority of the responses were neutral as
50% felt neutral and 16 percent for uninteresting and
also unsure about the containers. For the design of the
artwork, the responses were mostly towards the unclear
and uninteresting as 34% were unsure and 16 percent
were uninteresting, 34% were also neutral about the
design.

The responses for the factors for developing the artwork

can be seen in the figure 6.2.6 the responses for the
reasonably priced, 34% were stating that they are in
agreement either strongly or somewhat. 16 percent for
both neutral and somewhat disagree. In the case of the
Collaboration with people from other fields to complete
the artwork, 16% were strongly agreeing and 50%
somewhat agree. Whereas, 34% of them were neutral.
For the selection of tools for design of the artwork, the
responses were mostly uniform as 50% were neutral and
remaining were either agreeing partially or disagreeing
with it.

Figure 6.2.6: Responses for Developing the Artwork by

themselves

The responses for the needs of the creative artworks as

can be seen in figure 6.2.7 are almost same as 34 percent
felt that it should meet the user expectations, user
friendliness and better selection of tools.
Figure 6.2.4: Responses of Would the following features make you
more or less interested in Artwork?

Limitations and Scope of Artwork: In order to test the

scope of the project and future implementations, the
responses were asked about the features which can be
added to make it more creative and the factors effecting
the development of these artwork projects and its
implementation to the needs of the users. As can be seen
in the figure 6.2.5 the responses were mixed as it can be
seen nearly 34 percent were neutral about the artwork to

Figure 6.2.7: Responses to What are the features required to

make it more creative?

7. VALIDITY AND LIMITATIONS

Our findings are purely indications of users (i.e. students
in the computer science department IDI) experiences and
their interaction with the artwork, and should not be
understood as evidence. Possible sources of bias in the
questionnaire may result due to the age, nationality and
education. In addition, the fact that respondents in the
questionnaire are related to the researcher as friends
may have influenced the responses as well, for instance,
answering the questions as may be correct instead of
giving an honest answer. However, the responses from
one person are disclosed from another in order to avoid
this. If the artwork is installed in different public places
and gathering responses from wide probability sample,
which could have provided us more in depth analysis of
various questions mentioned in the questionnaire.
However, with respect to the purpose of the project, we
feel that the questionnaires have served their purpose to
get a response on the different aspects as found during
preliminary studies of the project. To conclude, we feel
that the results are sufficient to perform the analysis and
can provide a good foundation for further research in this
field.

6. CONCLUSION
The purpose of the Artwork installation is to enhance the
knowledge of the participants over the environment
issues concerning water pollution, thus leading to
increase the awareness over this water pollution
problem, it seems that the participants are already aware
on the water pollution and its causes to the environment.
It is therefore can be seen that almost 50 percentage of
the respondents in the questionnaire were able to predict
that water pollution is usually effected by various factors
such as garbage dumping and industrial wastage, thus
understanding the role of the containers in the artwork.
When compared to this 34 percent felt that the artwork is
interactive and 50 percentage of the participants found
that the artwork is partially interactive as there were no
proper guidelines to operate the artwork, it confirms that
the artwork is able to convey the message of making
people aware of the water pollution issues and also
artwork was interactive enough to engage the
participants, thereby the artwork played as a source to
provide the scenario concerning to the environment. The
reasons for users not being interactive with the artwork
can be related to the various factors governing the
interactivity such as improper choice of the tools or
technologies used lack of involvement from the user
towards the artwork and so on. Although we have so
many different factors influencing the artwork, majority
of people felt either partially interactive or interactive
and also filling the field such as additional comments in
the questionnaire, participants answered that the artwork
is interactive and can be improved for making it easy to
understand and operate , also they answered that they
were delighted by the fact that the artwork is able to

communicate a message upon sensing the things being

dropped into one of the container provided in the
artwork. Also they were impressed by the sound when
the music pattern changes upon the small things dropped
into the different containers. However, the participants
suggested it could have been better if it was connected
directly to sensors rather than operating it manually.
Another interesting aspect of the artwork we presented
was to find the creativity of the artwork, the scope of
creativity provided by the artwork as either way of using
the things nearby the artwork such as papers, pens or the
way the participants able to imagine while working with
the artwork. These are the essential factors for a creative
artwork while simultaneously making the participants
aware of the intention of artwork i.e. awareness on the
water pollution. The observation performed illustrated
that participants were able to use their creativity and
thereby involve the small objects such as pen with the
artwork in order to test the artwork. We have presented
various factors which can influence the artwork, one
such being the choice of the tools being used for the
artwork. We have chosen the Arduino as a platform for
the hardware required for the artwork. The role of
Arduino was critical as it should support various other
components such as Leds, sensors and speaker, which
play a vital role in completing the artwork and its
purpose. The Arduino tool fulfilled these primary aspects
of providing a means of message related to water
pollution and at the same time it helped in producing an
artwork which is interactive. It seems that there are other
factors concerning the Arduino such as technical aspects,
one should possess the knowledge to use the hardware
and way of connecting ports of different components
such as ground, VCC and so on. The tool also provides
the good interface to program, However there are other
factors which has to be considered here such as the
knowledge of programming, the Arduino supports the
processing programming language so the artwork creator
should have expertise in programming language in order
to effectively utilize the programming and its functions
to the needs. It has been found during development that
the artwork needs knowledge in electronics in order to
connect to various pins of Arduino and also good
programming knowledge in order to be able to control
the components and utilizing the outputs from one
component to another. These aspects related to the
hardware and programming of Arduino tool can be
accessed from the persons, who have already used it.
The data collected through this research can also be used
for finding the role of Aesthetics and technologies with
arts as there are different components and technologies
contributing to the produced artwork.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my gratitude to the department of
Computer and Information Sciences (IDI), Norwegian
University of Science & Technology (NTNU) for all the help
in writing this paper. I would especially like to thank my
beloved Mother Mrs.Naseem Ahsan Shaikh who always pray
and helped me to improve my scientific /academic career.

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